


idyll

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Crushes, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Holding Hands, M/M, Mild Language, Pining, Playing Piano, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23694217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: In which a risk is taken, a list is made, there’s a piano, and somehow Akaashi gets a boyfriend out of all of it
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou
Comments: 26
Kudos: 175





	idyll

**Author's Note:**

> This is the single most cliche thing I’ve ever written but I actually kind of like how it turned out. It was fun. And there’s a lot of talk about my headcanons for Bokuto’s family here considering that they don’t show up once, but I went and got attached. And I’ve only written bokuaka like three times, but my favorite dynamic for them is absolutely just Akaashi’s huge, completely obvious crush on Bokuto and then whatever I want from there with no regard at all for cohesion or pacing. Also this is almost completely unedited, for a fair warning.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy

Akaashi Keiji is first and foremost a creature of habit; so when Bokuto first asks if they can maybe hold their Thursday-night study/hangout session at the (as of yet) elusive Bokuto household instead of the usual  _ library-corner store-Akaashi’s house _ , all that he can really bring himself to do is stare. In vague confusion and somewhat more concrete distaste, not because he dislikes the idea of going to Bokuto’s house but because something like that would take at least three days advance warning to properly prepare for. The two hours between lunch and the end of the day is not nearly enough time to fit in three days worth of near obsessive etiquette review sessions- that’s hardly enough time to figure out how he’s supposed to ask for a glass of water without embarrassing himself to death.

And Akaashi really,  _ really  _ would rather not embarrass himself in front of Bokuto, to death or otherwise. He’d like Bokuto to think that he’s cool, thank you, and then maybe agree to go out on a date with him and sweep him up into his (very strong) arms and carry him off into the sunset until one thing leads to another, they get a cat, and then have a spring wedding early in the morning and with lots of food. He doesn’t know. He hasn’t really thought about it 

Regardless, he can’t embarrass himself. So Akaashi is about to refuse, or else subtly steer Bokuto away from  _ that  _ idea until a better day, but then Bokuto looks at him head-on. Bokuto  _ looks _ at him, eyes wide and golden in the light from the noonday sun, his hair is sticking up in those ridiculous spikes that Akaashi’s always admired- especially once Bokuto-san told him that they took upwards of an  _ hour  _ to do each morning- and his tie is undone around his shoulders, a stray grain of rice from his lunch stuck to the corner of his mouth, and it’s just the right mix of disheveled and endearing that Akaashi’s brain goes momentarily blank. He stares somewhere to the left of Bokuto’s head, watching as his hair bobs in and out of his field of vision, and promptly does not process another word that he says for a good thirty seconds. 

“I just really want you to see the place!” is the first thing that he hears once he’s come back down to earth. It’s an exclamation in the usual Bokuto fashion- strong, clear, and very, very pointed- and if he weren’t already sitting, he’d probably be weak in the knees.

Damn it.

“That sounds good,” he ends up saying, only half-aware. Bokuto smiles at him, a big one that spreads all across his face with the speed and strength of a comet, and that’s that. Akaashi Keiji is done for, and it's all because his resolve is about as sturdy as a twig.

So now it’s after school, they’re walking side-by-side to Bokuto’s house, and though Akaashi knows exactly  _ how  _ and  _ why  _ he ended up in this situation, it hasn’t gotten any less embarrassing to think about in the past two hours.

“My stepdad works weird hours so he’ll probably be back late,” Bokuto is saying, part of the crash-course on his family that he had deemed necessary a few crosswalks back. “And my mom picks up my two younger brothers on her way home from work, my older sister doesn’t get back until around five and then my _oldest_ little sister has soccer practice until like, seven, and then the second-oldest little sister has band until around the same time, so we should have the place to ourselves for a little while. Which is good because I’ll have some time to show you around before everybody gets home, since we _definitely_ won’t have time once they get back. It’s also going to be really loud. Like, _really_ loud. Ten times louder than whatever you’re thinking.”

Akaashi blinks at him. This one-sided conversation is illuminating, to say the least, and beyond that it’s revealing just how much he doesn’t know about Bokuto. He can list his strengths and weaknesses like a second nature, knows his opinions on everything from ice cream flavors to TV shows, is both able and willing to read his moods at the drop of a hat, but things regarding family? Things dealing in the more harmless, personal aspects of his life? Those are as foreign to Akaashi as a good night’s sleep. But Bokuto seems willing to share, and Akaashi wants to learn, and he supposes that that’s what drew him to Bokuto in the first place- that push and pull, the easy rhythm of Akaashi, of Bokuto, of Akaashi-and-Bokuto. It makes sense, and Akaashi Keiji- being first and foremost a creature of habit- likes it when things make sense. 

“You have a rather large family, Bokuto-san,” he settles on, once all of this has flung itself through his brain at top speed. He’s feeling a little nauseous, though that may just be because he expects Bokuto’s house to be peeking over the horizon at any minute now and he’s only on item fifty-five of the  _ Impending Worst Case Scenarios List-  _ patent pending _ \-  _ that he's running concurrent to all his other thoughts.   
  


“Yep!” Bokuto laughs, hopping from the curb back to the sidewalk and swinging his arms at his side. His bookbag moves with it, knocking between his own hip and Akaashi’s own in time with their steps. “There’s eight of us in the house in total! Drives me fucking  _ crazy  _ sometimes, but I love ‘em anyways, you know? And I think that I’m going to end up living on-campus for college, so I probably won’t be able to see them as much pretty soon. I’m gonna miss them. But I don’t wanna think about that right now, not when we’re almost there! C’mon, it’s down this street.”

He gently wraps his hand around Akaashi’s wrist, fingers pressed tight over his pulse. Akaashi reels from emotional whiplash, and Bokuto pays that absolutely no mind and instead tugs him around the next bend in the sidewalk. The movement pulls their shoulders flush for an excruciating second, long enough for a fourth of a heartbeat but hardly enough time for Akaashi to process it before it’s gone, and then Bokuto’s letting go of his wrist ( _ already _ ) to barrel on ahead, excitement driving him to a brisk jog. Akaashi shakes his head once then twice, clearing the last bits of fuzz from his mind as he stumbles quickly over the cracked old sidewalk to try and keep up. The neighborhood itself isn’t out of the ordinary in any way that would require observation; so rather than focus on the solid-colored fronts of the houses, or their uniform splash-of-color doors, he devotes himself to making sure that he doesn’t run into one of the many, many lampposts.

It’s more difficult than one would think. In the short span of road between the corner they turned and Bokuto’s house, there’s no less than five of them, and as Bokuto seems to know where they all are by second nature or habit or something of that sort, he’s only sped up and is dodging around them with ease. The lampposts, the particularly disturbed patches of sidewalk, the spaces where the ants gather and swarm- Bokuto doesn’t glance twice at any of these, but Akaashi is bumbling along like a newborn fawn. Fuck, he hates this. Creatures, habits, etc. etc. He should have listened to instinct and told Bokuto that they could go to his house  _ after  _ Akaashi had been given adequate time to prepare for every possible situation. 

It’s too late for that sort of thinking now- Bokuto has hopped up the stairs to one of the houses and is fumbling to get his key in the lock, Akaashi is right behind him and carefully showing no signs of exertion. He’s got his pride at least, and no hair made hapless from running is going to deprive him of that. 

“Here we are!” Bokuto says as he finally gets the key to turn, slamming the door open with a flourish. He gestures grandly and stands there, straight-backed and smiling widely until Akaashi huffs an embarrassed sigh and goes in before him. Bokuto follows, letting the door slam shut behind them, and with that Akaashi has officially diverged from the beaten path and obligated himself to the first ever Thursday-night study/hangout session at Bokuto’s house.

So he takes a deep breath, steels himself, takes a quick second to mourn for the loss of his routine and the impending loss of his dignity (he knows it’s coming) and then looks around.

The house certainly looks as though it’s lived in by eight people, half of them children. There are wooden blocks scattered over the entryway, spilled from one point of concentration in a way that screams  _ knocked over tower,  _ there’s a pile of shoes in varying sizes and styles stacked up near the door, and over near the corner of the room off the entryway there’s a bookshelf overflowing with board books and bright colors. Bokuto pulls him through the hallway, kicking off his shoes while Akaashi carefully removes his own, then through to the kitchen. Akaashi’s head turns on a swivel, desperate to take it all in; it’s very standard as far as kitchens go, with a personal touch here and there that feels very Bokuto, though Akaashi is beginning to suspect that some of the oddities he’d attributed to  _ Bokuto Koutarou  _ in particular are probably more  _ Bokuto Family  _ in general.

The room itself is small. It’s lit darkly, with a mess of cabinets and colorful magnets sprawled over the fridge, the alphabet sort with the raised characters and the solid lines. They’re currently arranged to spell SHIT, which alright, that’s none of his business. The counter is covered in a veritable pool of plastic cups, and there’s even the odd mug scattered here and there by what Akaashi is assuming in some brave soul who doesn’t fear for the life or love of ceramic.

It’s homey. It’s lived-in. There are mountains of papers on the counter and hung up on the freezer, things ranging from bills to reminders to children’s drawings done up in crayon and finger-paint. There’s even a messy caricature of Bokuto himself, one done in black ballpoint pen on the back of a takeout menu and hung right next to the to-do lists and construction paper butterflies. It’s nothing more than some scribbles and a few straight, angular lines, but between the big bug-eyes and the hair standing on end and the little volleyball that graces the upper left hand corner, it's unmistakable as to who it’s meant to be. As for the  _ actual  _ Bokuto, he has a cabinet open and is rooting through the dishes inside (and does not have hair that stands nearly as tall as the Bokuto in the drawing, though it does come close), mumbling idly under his breath. Akaashi stops his incessant observation of the room to instead engage in a bit of incessant observation of Bokuto’s forearms as he stops his search to roll up his sleeves and tuck his tie into his pocket, circling his shoulders and cracking his neck from side to side as Akaashi stands off to the side with the hem of his shirt clutched in his hands and his brain melting from between his ears. 

“Hey, do you want some water?” Bokuto calls over his shoulder. Akaashi nods, remembers that Bokuto can’t actually  _ see  _ him, coughs once to clear his head and then tries desperately to regain himself.

“Um. Yes, please,” he replies. And shit, it’s no wonderfully eloquent articulation but it does get the job done. 

“Gotcha,” Bokuto replies. He takes two cups from the cabinet and goes to fill them up, and all the while Akaashi finds himself unable to return to his half-there observational state of the room around him; instead he’s focused on Bokuto and Bokuto alone, on the ways that he moves and the ways that he doesn’t, on the strands of his hair that have fallen out of place and the way that they fall stiff over the back of his neck. He looks at the curve of his back as he bustles around the sink, at the flex and fall of his chest against the thin fabric of the school-sanctioned button up. 

Then Bokuto turns to hand him the cup and Akaashi looks away so quickly that it hurts. 

“You alright?” Bokuto asks, bemused. He downs the contents of his cup-which is pink and patterned with flamingos- in one go.

“Yes. Fine,” Akaashi tells him, much too quickly and just a touch too loud before turning to his own water to avoid further questioning. Bokuto takes his answer at face value and shrugs, goes to rest against the counter and thumb at his phone while Akaashi finishes off his water and decides that he is  _ not  _ going to make a fool of himself, and he is  _ not  _ going to stare at Bokuto. 

Bokuto takes his glass from him when he’s done. Akaashi proceeds to get distracted by his forearms again. This is looking precariously close to scenario thirty-two on his list.

“You ready for the grand tour then?” Bokuto asks as he rinses the cups clean. “It’s nothing all that interesting, but afterwards we can start studying.”

Right. The study portion of the Thursday-night study/hangout sessions, because apparently  _ that  _ part of the routine is one that Bokuto feels they cannot deviate from even though everything else has descended into an unpredictable flurry of  _ drawings  _ and  _ families  _ and fucking  _ forearms.  _ But that’s alright, because Akaashi is as adaptable and easygoing as a brick wall. He’s got this. 

So he nods, and Bokuto’s face lights up.

“Great! Alright, let’s do this!”

And out of the kitchen they go.

“So that was the kitchen, obviously,” Bokuto says. He jabs a thumb over his shoulder at a small, dark hallway winding off near the entrance. “That leads to the master bedroom, and I’ve never really thought about it, but I’ve only ever been in there like, twice, and I don’t know if that’s weird or not. Anyways, the other bedrooms are all upstairs, mine too, and the only other room down here is the living room.”

The living room is off to the other side of the entrance- Bokuto drags him right into it and then they stand side-by-side on the carpeting as Akaashi tries to figure out what he’s meant to say. He could comment on the television or the couch- but what would he say, _you have a television and a couch_ \- or he could say something about the carpeting- _beige, what a nice neutral color choice, really matches this conversation, did it come like that_ _or did you guys remodel_ \- or he could say something about a potted plant and hope that there’s one hidden somewhere in the room that Bokuto will then talk about at length, but then from the corner of his eye he sees it. Old and chipped, pushed up against a wall and made of some light brown wood he couldn’t put a name to if he tried; even from their position in the middle of the room he can see that some of the keys are dead and done, that all of them are yellowed, but it’s unmistakable. 

“Do you play?” Akaashi asks.

“Huh? Do I play what?” 

Bokuto swings to look at him, confused. Akaashi realizes with a slowly mounting horror that Bokuto can’t in fact see inside of his brain, and to him it seems like Akaashi’s been ridiculously quiet up until this point only to say something strange up and out of the blue. Not that that’s strange for him, saying something strange, but right now he’s trying  _ not _ to look like someone who just spent ten seconds agonizing over carpeting choices that weren’t even his  _ own  _ carpeting choices. Non-sequiturs don’t really help with that.

Akaashi tilts his head in the general direction of the corner. Surely that’s cool, or at least cool adjacent.

“The piano,” he says just in case. 

Bokuto still looks caught off-guard, squinting for a second and tilting his head (he really does look quite like an owl sometimes) before snapping back up, face alight with comprehension. 

“Oh yeah, sometimes! Here, if we just-” he lifts his bag up and over his head, tugs at Akaashi’s until he lets him do the same with his own, and places them both neatly on the couch. Then he shoots off to the corner, pulling the bench from beneath the piano and flicking on the lamp that stands tall and diligent at its side. The room is already lit by virtue of the windows scattered over the far wall, but between the not-quite shut blinds and the general dim lighting of the house as a whole, the warm orange light still spills strong over the floor. 

“Are you comin’ over?” he calls lightly as he ruffles the sheet music already lying flat in front of him. Akaashi blinks, taken aback by this sudden (fortunate? He’s still stuck on the way Bokuto’s hands brushed over his chest when he removed his bag) turn of events, and dumbstruck, he wanders over to stand by the piano. Awkwardly, because he still hasn’t quite figured out how he’s meant to hold himself, hands too heavy at his sides and arms as lengthy and useless as a rope. 

“Sit!” Bokuto tells him, still focused on the music. He moves over on the bench, taking one hand to pat idly at the empty space while the other smooths the spine of the book until it lies flat. Bokuto has nice hands, large fingers and squared-off nails and palms rough with years upon years of practice. Akaashi does not look at them. Akaashi takes his crush-related thoughts and ignores them with a vengeance. Akaashi sits on the bench.

It takes a moment; they’re both a little too tall to be sitting so close, so Bokuto has to hook his ankle over Akaashi’s to reach the pedal and whenever he moves his left arm too quickly their legs bump up and jumble into the base of the keyboard. It’s very clumsy, inefficient at that, but as Bokuto taps out a few notes, bottom lip pulled between his teeth as his brow furrowed in concentration, Akaashi finds himself leaning in as close as he’s able without disturbing. He looks at the strict, severe, and intentional cut of his hairline, at the curl of his eyelashes, at the muscles in his forearms; he looks at the tie that’s falling out of his pocket, and the way that his leg bounces when he’s bored, and the rolling of his shoulders from what Akaashi thinks is out of habit over need. He does not look at his hands, though he would like to. He’s not quite sure what that means.

“I like the simpler stuff,” Bokuto says, running through a scale. One of the keys- Akaashi’s not sure of the name, but it’s the one right at the height, right in the middle- thuds uselessly beneath his pinkie before he runs back down, cutting the crux of the scale short. It creates an odd effect- up and down, with no clear turning point, just a note played twice over with silence looped in between. “My mom can do some  _ crazy  _ shit, like allll the way up all the keys and then down again in a second, but I never learned anything like that. I mean I know  _ some _ , but volleyball’s always come first for me, and my family knows that. I think my mom was a little disappointed that she wouldn’t have anyone to play the more complicated duets with, though.”

“Do none of your other siblings play?” Akaashi asks. Bokuto does another scale, this one different. He hits some of the black keys this time, and the sound is lower and sadder and full like the round of a curve.

“Nope! My little brothers are both way too young, and my sisters are all as set on their own things as I am on volleyball. Runs in the family, I think.”

“Tunnel vision?”

Bokuto groans, lightly dropping his hand on the keys for a discordant  _ twang _ . “It sounds much less cool if you say it like that! I was thinking resolve, or something fancy like that. Maybe determination.”

That does sound much better. Normally Akaashi would have suggested something like that, cool and involved but still neutral enough for plausible deniability, but he’s a bit off his game at the moment. 

“Determination,” Akaashi echoes. Bokuto stops playing scales in favor of something similar, still all ups and downs but with more notes skipped in between, and Akaash is completely out of his element. 

“See? Much better.”

Akaashi nods. Bokuto gives him a great big smile and nudges his side, knocks their ankles together again for good measure, and then turns back to the piano and breaks out into song.

Or maybe  _ breaks  _ is too harsh a word for it, too much like a crash through the wall or a very unfortunate accident regarding an antique vase; it's more of a turn and then a break, like one second there’s no music and the next Bokuto is elbowing him in the side as he presses down on the keys, playing something light and airy with little movement and no tension. A children’s song, Akaashi thinks, with a bit of a flair to it- he’s given in and is watching Bokuto’s hands, and the way that his fingers flutter in time with the steady underlying  _ thunk  _ of a low note certainly seems complex enough- recognizable but not something that he could put a name to. Short, too. One minute in, one minute out, and then it's done and it’s just Akaashi and Bokuto, alone on a piano bench and with no music to justify it. 

“That was nice,” Akaashi says, just to break the silence. It’s even an  _ actual _ break this time, harshness and antique vases and all.

“It was one of the first songs that I learned how to play,” Bokuto tells him, inching to the side until he can look at Akaashi as he speaks. “I mean it was an easier version of it at first, but as I got better my mom sort of added to it? Like a milestone kinda thing. Whenever she thought I was ready she added a technique or variation or something, and I’d use it as a basis.”

“Your mother sounds like a good teacher.”

“She is! A really, really good teacher. But really, at this point I could probably do that song with my eyes closed no matter  _ what  _ she adds on, I know it so well. Shit, I mean if you wanted I could probably teach the first version to you even though I haven’t been able to find the music for it for  _ years. _ ”

As is the theme of their evening, Akaashi immediately tumbles down another rabbit hole, or at least a chain of very logical assumptions that begins and ends with  _ Bokuto _ , along with what seems to have been an offer for him to teach Akaashi a simple piano song. Which would be nice of him were Akaashi literally anyone else, but there’s something (bizarrely deceptive, apparently) about Akaashi that next to no one knows, largely by design:

He doesn’t have a musical bone in his body. 

He’s tried everything, from violin to clarinet, from the drums to the trumpet- which was nothing short of painful for  _ everybody _ \- and not one of them stuck. And Akaashi knows his limits, keeps them straight and orderly and well within sight so that way when situations like  _ this  _ come up he can bow out without completely ruining the reputation he’s spent so long building up. He has never tried to play the piano because he knows that without a doubt, any attempt will be short lived and underwhelming at  _ best  _ and ear-rendingly painful at a much more likely worst. And again: this is Thursday-night study-hangout session. Of the things that they are meant to do on a Thursday-night study/hangout session, playing the piano is not one of them- though if he were to get technical or hung up on semantics, or if he was trying to buy himself some time so that he can figure out what to say to Bokuto, he’d argue that it could fall under  _ hangout _ \- and it’s also not one of the things that he prepared for in his two hour strategy session between lunch and the end of the school day.

So the logical thing to do here would be to refuse and allow Bokuto to play for a little longer, listen in quietly like his crush  _ isn’t  _ growing dangerously out of hand, and then casually suggest that they get to studying. Then they’d be back in familiar territory, and Akaashi could smash his feelings right back down into a point at the center of his stomach, and they could be productive and familiar and nothing would ever have to change  _ ever _ . They would carry on as they do and as they always have for the rest of the year, right up until Bokuto graduates and Akaashi starts the long and arduous process of moving on from him.

Or, he could indulge himself a little. Do something stupidly illogical just this once, just to see if he can and just to see what comes of it, for no reason other than personal  _ want. _

This situation can’t end all that badly anyways- it wasn’t on the  _ Impending Worst Case Scenarios List _ \- patent pending- and that was as extensive as the sky is blue, so if nothing else nobody should  _ die  _ here. In theory. According to the list. 

“Alright,” he settles on. A leap of faith.

Which is number twenty-two on the list ( _leaps, of faith or otherwise, as someone’s ankle inevitably ends up twisted_ ) but he’s in too deep now to turn back.   
  


“Hmmm?” Bokuto hums, tearing his attention away from the melody that he’d started up while Akaashi was off on his internal tangent, a usual tick in their pattern; Akaashi gets lost in his head, and Bokuto carries on until he’s run his course. 

“Show me how,” Akaashi says, squirming lightly as he tries to situate himself more in front of the keyboard. He lifts a hand to poke at the piano- there’s a short, sharp  _ plink  _ and he jerks back, staring in vague terror as the key quivers small and scared where he touched it. This thing really is old, with pencil scratches over its paneling and the sticky residue of some long removed sticker gunking up the spaces between the keys, and Akaashi is scared that he’s going to push too hard, with all of his nonexistent musicality, and the thing is going to crash into pieces right there and then. 

“Wait, really?” Bokuto asks. When Akaashi nods in return he makes a noise that’s somewhere between a hoot and a shout and makes an immediate grab at Akaashi’s wrists, gently scooping his hands up and placing them right in the center of the keyboard, the part closest to the small sliver of space between them; with the movement that sliver disappears, and they’re pressed so close that Akaashi can feel the rise and fall of Bokuto’s side as it shifts around his breaths. 

He takes a breath himself, taking in the scent of old wood and whatever candle or air freshener that seems to be favored by the Bokuto household. He breathes back out and tries not to die right there. 

“We’ll start with the right hand,” Bokuto tells him. He’s talking  _ right  _ next to him, voice low and warm and rumbling down in his chest. His breath slides warm over the shell of Akaashi’s ear, and it takes a depth of willpower he didn’t even know that he had to keep shivers from slithering up his spine and showing in his hands, his face, the way that he holds himself. 

“If you look close, you should be able to see the markings my mom made on the keys when she was trying to teach my little sister. They’re kinda old but she finally decided to use a permanent marker, so they’re still pretty dark.”

He lets go of Akaashi’s hand to tap at one of the keys, one of the white-yellow ones that’s sitting right in front of them. Sure enough when Akaashi squints, he can make out the faint outline of a  _ C  _ written in neat, large handwriting over the bulk of the key. It’s a simple series from there; Akaashi notes what he can in the time that he’s given, and leaves the rest up to Bokuto.

“So the first thing that you’re gonna do is use your thumb to hit the  _ C  _ right there,” he demonstrates, and Akaashi follows. “Yeah! Just like that! And then next is the  _ A,  _ that’s the one here, and you use your pinkie for that one, and then the  _ G  _ to the left of that- other left, ‘Kaashi- and back up to the  _ A- _ ”

They progress like that, and Akaashi is actually doing decently (he’s very proud of himself) right up until the very end, where things start to cave in on themselves and Akaashi remembers  _ why  _ his mother banned any and all percussion instruments from their household.

“Oooh,” Bokuto says, wincing slightly as Akaashi butchers the last run of notes for the third time in a row. “Okay not quite, not quite, why don’t you try moving your hand like this and- ahh, here, I’ll just help you out a bit, alright?”   
  


And then he takes Akaashi’s hand and  _ holds  _ it, outright  _ holds  _ it for a second as he stares hard at the keyboard, mumbling under his breath. Akaashi dies a short and thoroughly embarrassing death ten times over; then when that’s done he continues to move and breathe and be, he realizes that he is still alive and pressed up against Bokuto and very, very unsure what to do about it. He’s well on his way to panic too, because now Bokuto is looking at their hands and drawing his eyebrows together, tilting his head to the side and holding them up to the light, and Akaashi doesn’t know  _ what  _ is going on anymore. This wasn’t on his list, but then this isn’t a worst-case scenario; it’s more of something that is so ridiculously  _ good  _ and so ridiculously  _ unlikely  _ that the only reasonable assumption is that something very bad is going to happen within five minutes, just to balance things out. Akaashi’s money is on aliens. 

(Number five, incidentally.)

Bokuto gently pries their fingers apart and then coaxes Akaashi, who is currently as malleable as clay, to lay their hands flat against each other until their palms are pressed close and Akaashi can’t see the tips of Bokuto’s fingers behind his own. 

“Ah,” Bokuto says, pouting. His thumb slips down to run over the joint where Akaashi’s finger joins to the fleshy part of his hand. He runs the pad slowly over a jut-out bit of bone, pressing spots of warmth soft into Akaashi’s skin. He inches closer on the bench until their thighs are pressed together and his breath is huffing over the side of Akaashi’s neck, close enough that when he looks up from their hands Bokuto’s eyes are right there, big and piercing and thirty shades of gold. “Your fingers are longer than mine but I’m taller than you. That’s not fair, ‘Kaashi- I bet once we figure this out you’ll be able to reach most of the keys way easier than I could.”

Akaashi can’t seem to think straight- Bokuto is right there, and they are very close, and his emotions are roiling around in his stomach, charged and ready to spill straight from his mouth the moment that he lets his guard down, which is both very frustrating and very inconvenient at the moment.

“Not that much easier,” he murmurs, as anything else feels too heavy for the moment. “I think that you’re doing very well already. And it doesn’t really mean much if I don’t actually know how to play, right?”

It’s all bluster- talking because he’s not sure what else to do. He knows what he  _ wants  _ to do, is not so out of touch with himself that he’s unable to parse the gnawing that he feels at the base of his spine, but he’s also not brave enough to act on it quite yet. That’s the sort of thing that needs some time to itself first. 

“Isn’t that what we were trying to do? Get you playing somethin’?” Bokuto questions. He’s gotten closer if that’s possible, has laced his fingers down into the spaces between Akaashi’s with no other preamble. They are eye-to-eye. A second later, they are nose-to-nose and Akaashi can feel the heat emanating from Bokuto’s skin, can see the bob of his throat as he swallows and the shift of his shirt as he twists to face Akaashi entirely. His free hand is curled over the outside edge of the bench. His eyes look even warmer than usual in the light from the lamp, and for some godawful reason that’s what does it for Akaashi, what makes the tension in his stomach snap as he leans forwards and looks directly into Bokuto’s eyes.

“I think we may have gotten a bit off track,” he says. He frees his hand from Bokuto’s. He leans forwards.

And then- then they’re definitely kissing, and it’s a close, hungry thing that Akaashi is not entirely sure that he’s doing correctly because he’s never kissed anyone before. It  _ feels  _ right; it feels warm and soft and a little bit strange, awkward because their noses keep bumping and Akaashi’s not quite sure where he’s meant to put his hands, but it’s close. He feels close to Bokuto, like he’s melting into him as his hands lift from the keyboard to tangle up in his hair. There’s still not much room between them, no space to run or hide, so the weight of the action is hung out in the open between the shift of his wrists and the curl of Bokuto’s thumb over his cheekbone and the little bit of a bite Akaashi gives to his bottom lip- and oh no,  _ that’s  _ not right, no more teeth, a little less pressure, and there, there,  _ there  _ they go- and it’s-

He’s not quite sure what it is. Good, that’s for sure, and god knows that right now that’s enough (because he’s kissing Bokuto, he’s  _ kissing  _ Bokuto, he’s  _ kissing Bokuto _ and Bokuto is kissing  _ back _ ) and all that he can think is that he really ought to think less more often, if this is what it leads to.

When they do eventually break apart, because they both have to breathe, Akaashi feels all crumbled up inside, soft and warm and happy. It’s overwhelming. He doesn’t know how to express even half of it.

“Um,” he says, a little out of it still.

“Glufhhfhf,” Bokuto says back, sort of like the steam from a kettle. He’s flushed bright red. And then: “Wait, does this mean that you like me? Like,  _ like  _ like?”

Akaashi looks at him.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Bokuto decides after a moment. Then he’s right back in front of Akaashi, and they’re kissing again.

And again, and again. And again and again and again, though they have to move to the couch eventually because Akaashi’s back is starting to hurt from the crick-twist thing required to kiss another person while sitting on a piano bench, and the couch takes a bit of time to figure out too because initially Bokuto forgets that their bags are still there and Akaashi ends up with the corner of a textbook jammed into his spine, but that’s quickly overtaken by the rush he feels at their sheer proximity; it’s one thing to  _ think  _ about Bokuto’s hair and the way it must feel, and another thing entirely to have it pushed between his fingers, stiff from the hair gel. There’s the  _ fact  _ that Bokuto’s arms are heavily muscled, and the  _ feeling  _ of them wound around his back. There’s thinking  _ I want to kiss him,  _ and then there’s  _ actually  _ kissing him.

(And kissing him, and kissing him, and kissing him.)

(And again, for good measure.)

(And again.)

He doesn’t know how long they’re there- his brain left him to his own devices a little while ago- but it’s a whirlwind of sensation and warmth, the weight of Bokuto pressed against him versus the rush of bubbles that leave him lightheaded. It’s the push and pull again; Akaashi, Bokuto, Akaashi-and-Bokuto together in what Akaashi hopes will become a new habit of theirs for him to catalogue at his leisure. And for him to frequent too, with any luck.

When enough time has passed, hazy and shapeless, they stop. Just like that, with Bokuto’s arms still tucked around his back and his head now dropped to Akaashi’s shoulder, a weight rested right above his collarbone. He mumbles something indistinct, and Akaashi hums lightly (an odd feeling when they’re so close like this), poking at his back.

“What was that?”

“I asked if you wanted to go to the movies or something after school tomorrow,” Bokuto says, lifting his head. He blinks a few times, eyes adjusting to the light and still looking just as off-kilter as Akaashi feels. Akaashi feels a sudden rush of fondness and pokes at his back again, slightly harder this time. 

“Are you asking me on a date?” he asks, amused, because he hasn’t succumbed to a heart attack or the fizzy feeling he feels building at the base of his neck, and he thinks that he should be allowed to be at least a  _ little  _ difficult as a reward. Just for fun, just for a bit.

Bokuto snorts, looking very unimpressed. “Yeah, I’m asking you on a date. I thought it was kinda obvious, but I like you too.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“ _ Akaashiiiiii, _ ” Bokuto whines, burying his face back in his shoulder. He huffs a little breath of indignation (well-deserved) and pushes back up, scowling at Akaashi’s half-smile. “You’ve gotta be nice to me now. We’re-“ he wrinkles his nose. “Dating? Thinking about dating? Potentially dating?”

“Why don’t we just go with dating for now,” Akaashi tells him. Bokuto lightly kneads a knuckle into his side; he’s smiling with abandon now, brighter than Akaashi’s ever seen.

“Dating it is,” he agrees.

And really, there’s nothing more to it. 

Eventually, the first wave of Bokuto’s family comes pouring in through the door; by then they’re standing and deliberating, trying to figure out where the best place for them to actually  _ study  _ would be- it’s still a Thursday-night study/hangout session after all, regardless of new developments- but the moment that they arrive the debate is pushed aside as Bokuto introduces him to a whole slew of siblings all at once, without letting go of his hand and studiously (the most studious thing they’ve done all day) keeping to three points of contact; hand-in-hand, hand-on-shoulder, knees close enough to bump.

They’re not subtle at all. When Bokuto’s older sister comes home she gives him a very indiscreet thumbs up, and all of the other siblings are yelling about something or other, but Akaashi finds that he doesn’t really mind. Bokuto is still holding his hand; tomorrow they’re going out on a date, they’ve kissed over and over today, and all of that together more than enough for now. 

Though if he sits a little closer than strictly necessary once their studying is delegated to Bokuto’s room, and if he maybe gets a kiss more here or there- well that’s nobody’s business but his own.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it this far, please consider leaving a comment!! I love hearing from you guys!!


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